My Groom Ran Off With My Sister — So I Walked Into The Dark With London’s Most Scandalous Duke

Part 1

Betrayal does not announce itself with a sudden thunderclap.

It smells exactly like crushed gardenias and tastes like dry chalk at the very back of your throat.

Standing at the altar in a dress made for a saint, I waited for a man who was already halfway to the border with my own sister.

This is not a fairy tale about a stoic maiden finding her courage in the face of adversity.

It is a story about mud on a white silk hem, the suffocating grip of public scandal, and a ruined duke who laughed at the funeral of my reputation.

Sweat trickled down the center of my spine in a slow, tickling descent that I could do absolutely nothing about.

My arms were pinned beneath layers of stiff ivory taffeta.

My waist was bound so tightly by whalebone that my breaths came in shallow, completely inadequate sips.

I stared straight ahead at the stained glass window behind the altar.

Saint Jude, the patron saint of lost causes, stared back at me with quiet indifference.

The heavy scent of beeswax candles and lilies hung thick in the stagnant air of the family chapel.

It was a cloying, heavy smell that reminded me entirely of a funeral parlor.

I swallowed hard against the dry restriction in my throat, fighting the sudden sharp urge to gag.

Ten minutes had passed since the vicar cleared his throat for the first time.

Another five had slipped by since the frantic whispering in the pews behind me began.

It did not start as a roar, but as the unmistakable rustle of dry leaves.

Taffeta shifted abruptly, expensive painted fans snapped open, and throats cleared in synchronized impatience.

It was the collective judgment of three hundred of London’s elite packed into the pews to witness the grand union of two ancient estates.

Brian was inexcusably late.

I shifted my weight slightly, the tight leather of my right slipper pinching my toes mercilessly.

I did not feel a sense of impending doom in that exact moment.

I just felt profoundly, overwhelmingly irritated.

My scalp itched furiously beneath the heavy crown of orange blossoms.

A stray silver pin was digging a deep trench directly into my right temple.

I wanted Brian to arrive immediately so I could say my meaningless vows, get to the suffocating breakfast, and finally take off these damned shoes.

Then I heard the heavy, uneven tread of my father’s boots echoing against the stone floor.

Lord Stanton did not walk with the measured, dignified grace of a man giving his eldest daughter away.

He marched with the frantic energy of a soldier retreating from the front lines.

I turned my head slightly, the heavy lace of my bridal veil dragging against my bare collarbone.

My father’s face was the exact color of old, forgotten parchment.

The deep lines bracketing his mouth were pulled tight, and his eyes were wide with a frantic, unmasked panic.

He did not step up beside me to take his proper place.

He stepped directly in front of me, entirely blocking my view of Saint Jude.

I whispered his name, my voice cracking slightly in the painfully dry air.

He reached out immediately, his thick fingers gripping my elbow with a sudden bruising force.

He leaned in closely, and I smelled the sharp, sour tang of his morning brandy lurking just beneath his expensive cologne.

He told me Brian was not coming.

The words dropped onto the stone floor between us like heavy lead weights.

I stared blankly at the erratic, terrified pulse beating rapidly in my father’s neck.

I asked if there had been some sort of terrible accident.

The rational part of my brain was desperately trying to construct a scaffolding over the sudden abyss opening in my stomach.

He hissed that it was far worse than a simple accident.

His voice was a low, strangled rasp that barely concealed his rising, volcanic fury.

He told me my sister’s bed was completely empty this morning.

Her personal maid had just tearfully confessed the entire sorted truth in the kitchen.

They had taken a hired carriage north together hours before dawn.

Brian and Heather had run away.

The chapel seemed to expand and contract rapidly in a single nauseating heartbeat.

Heather, my fragile younger sister, the one who had complained of a severe migraine and stayed home from the ceremony.

Heather, with her soft, breathless laugh and her infuriating habit of leaving her silk ribbons draped carelessly over my chairs.

I did not feel a sudden, shattering heartbreak.

I did not feel the tearing of my soul or a sudden dramatic weakness in my knees.

I felt completely and utterly absurd.

I was standing in a small fortune of imported silk, looking exactly like an overdecorated pastry.

Meanwhile, the man who had spent the last six months quoting dull, uninspired poetry to me had run off with my own sister.

My father warned me to keep my composure, his grip tightening painfully as if he fully expected me to collapse into hysterics.

I demanded that he let go of my arm immediately.

My voice sounded entirely normal, and the steady evenness of it surprised even me.

He insisted we must leave through the vestry quickly before the rising murmurs became outright shouts of scandal.

I refused the pathetic suggestion without a second thought.

I pulled my arm back sharply, the sudden movement tearing a small silk seam completely under my armpit.

I did not care about the ruined dress in the slightest.

Sneaking out the back door would instantly confirm I was a victim, a broken thing to be pitied by the masses.

I absolutely refused to give the circling vultures the profound satisfaction of seeing me flee in disgrace.

I turned around slowly, the sea of faces blurring together into a chaotic kaleidoscope of pastel silks and gleaming jewels.

The vicious whispering stopped the very instant I faced them.

The resulting silence was infinitely heavier than the noise pressing against my eardrums just moments before.

I saw sickening pity in the eyes of the older women.

I saw barely concealed, malicious glee in the flushed faces of the younger ones.

I lifted my chin, feeling the veil slip backward and expose my face entirely to the harsh light.

I reached up blindly, my fingers fumbling with the heavy silver comb holding the intricate lace securely in place.

I pulled it free with a violent jerk.

Several strands of my dark hair ripped out entirely in the process, sending a sharp sting racing across my scalp.

The relief from the suffocating weight was instantaneous and glorious.

I dropped the expensive veil onto the cold stone floor, leaving it looking exactly like a discarded burial shroud.

Without a single word to the stunned vicar or to my trembling father, I began to walk down the center aisle.

I did not run like a frightened child.

I did not weep for a man I suddenly realized I barely knew.

I focused entirely on the excruciating, biting pinch of my right shoe.

I used the sharp physical pain to firmly anchor my spiraling mind to the present moment.

Left foot, then right foot.

I kept my eyes fixed dead ahead on the heavy oak doors at the back of the silent church.

The air suddenly smelled of stale dust and far too much expensive perfume.

As I passed the very final pew, someone gasped softly in the oppressive silence.

I did not flinch or turn my head to acknowledge the sound.

I pushed the heavy oak doors open myself, stepping out alone into the blinding, freezing gray light of the London morning.

Four days later, the scandal had only mutated into something far more toxic and suffocating.

The four walls of my bedroom felt exactly like a velvet-lined coffin.

The smell of my own stale breath and the lingering lavender sachets in my heavy wardrobe made my skin crawl.

I had to get out before I shattered the looking glass into a thousand jagged pieces.

I pulled a heavy, drab brown wool cloak over my shoulders, relishing the rough texture.

I crept down the back stairs and slipped out into a miserable, freezing gray soup of a drizzle.

I walked aimlessly until my boots sank deep into the thick mud near the neglected edges of the park.

The pathways were completely deserted, the fashionable crowds having been mercifully driven indoors by the wretched weather.

As the drizzle upgraded to a punishing downpour, I sought immediate refuge under the crumbling stone arch of an old bridge.

It was there, in the damp, freezing gloom, that I realized I was not entirely alone.

A man was sitting casually on the low stone parapet a few feet away, entirely unbothered by the rain dripping from the brim of his ruined top hat.

I recognized Tyler, the scandalous Duke of Ashbourne, a man spoken of only in hushed, terrified whispers.

He smelled strongly of cheap brandy, wet wool, and excellent imported tobacco.

He assessed me with heavy-lidded, exhausted eyes that held absolutely no trace of the pity I despised.

He tossed the dying stub of his cheroot directly into the muddy stream below.

He looked at me with a dark, cynical exhaustion that perfectly mirrored my own ruined soul.

“Tell me, Brenda,” he murmured, his gravelly voice barely audible over the pouring rain, “does the betrayal burn, or is it just freezing you from the inside out?”